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JLA 18.2 Web-Enhanced Article


Enregistering Diversity: Adequation in Indonesian Poetry Performance
Debbie Cole

This article demonstrates how “diversity” is enregistered in performances of contemporary poetry in bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) through voicing contrasts indexing membership in a linguistically and culturally heterogeneous Indonesian nation. Data from print media, instructional practices relating to the reading of poetry, and actual poetry-reading performances are used to trace interdiscursive links between public discourse about national diversity and performances of adequation– the social pursuit of linguistic sameness. These examples contribute to our understanding of how adequative language ideologies contribute to denaturalizing identities and suggest alternatives to language practices typically associated with ideologies of differentiation. [adequation, enregisterment, diversity, Indonesian poetry, national identity]

We’Es Ibnoe Sayy teaches about dialect in Indonesian Poetry (Internet Archive link)
We’Es Ibnoe Sayy teaches undergraduate Indonesian students to read poetry in Indonesian dialects at a Freshmen retreat hosted by Ahmad Dahlan University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

We’Es Ibnoe Sayy reads poem by Goenawan Mohamad (Internet Archive link)
Excerpts from a reading of Goenawan Mohamad’s poem “Tentang Seorang yang Terbunuh di Sekitar Hari Pemilihan Umum” [About a person killed around the day of the general election] by performer We’Es Ibnoe Sayy.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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